I love a bargain, or trying to create something out of nothing (something I picked up from my thrifty mother).
I have my chickens and my kitchen garden, both of these provide produce for my love of cooking.
Basically, if you can sew it, make, grow it or cook it you have come to the right place.
Follow me on my sewing/growing/cooking and making adventures together with some of life’s daily trials and tribulations.

About Me

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Sorry I just had to share this picture of Alana with her new sister taken a few hours after she was born................. I am now thinking that I will need to make a mini mini dress (3 months) for Sofia to wear at the wedding that is in the same fabric as Alana's bridesmaid dress.

Sunday, 24 February 2013

Following the birth of my 2nd Granddaughter yesterday I took little Alana off mum and dad's hands for a couple of hours so they could get some much needed rest, but used the time to allow me to measure her for her little bridesmaid dress.

I was feeling rather under pressure to start sewing for the wedding, especially as I only have 11 weeks 5 days to complete all my sewing and next weekend I won't be doing any sewing because we are off to Paris.

I managed to purchase some very pretty fabric that I want to use for my little bridesmaids and cut out the pattern today to make a start.

The bodice is a very simple the pattern envelope says:-

CHILDREN'S/GIRLS' DRESS AND CUMMERBUND: Fully underlined dress has lined bodice and an attached Petticoat with netting ruffles. Lapped zipper has covered button trim. B has a contrast overskirt and purchased ribbon for sash.

Let me tell you that there seemed yards of fabric in the skirt. Before I started the pleating when folded in half it would fit me, so there are some very large pleats reducing the fabric to fit a 2.5 year old.

The netting ruffles seemed to go on for ever, and I decided rather that doing running stitches, I would use my pleating attachment that was purchased for my old machine. This made life a little easier, however I had to be careful that the prongs didn't rip the netting.

Although Alana will be 3 in July, the measurements on the envelope provided that I cut out the size for age 2 (she isn't very big).

So here is a preview of the work so far. Sadly my mannequin Edna is far tooooooooo big to fit on her, so I had to make do with just popping the dress on a hanger.

There is still quite a bit of work to do, I need to sew the petticoat and attach the ruffles to it, and line the bodice, but I am pleased with how this is looking. The big girls will wear dresses in a similar colour to the purchased ribbon (this is just wound round the waist to give an idea of what the cummerbund will look like).

Phew half a dress completed only 6.5 dresses to go (including my own and I haven't even purchased the fabric yet).

Hi everyone - I landed at London Heathrow airport from my trip to Houston to some wonderful news, a few hours before I landed that my latest grandchild arrived - I am delighted to introduce you to beautiful little Sofia seen here with her sister Alana and my D Mike.

Both mother Natalie and baby are doing well, and Alana loves her new sister.

This is just going to be a quick post, but the second photo I want to show you is my meet up with the beautiful Dorcas that many of you know from the great blog Art Attack. Dorcas was wearing that cute little knit dress she reviewed recently on her blog, and it looked just a fantastic in real life. After a little shopping in Jo Anns we then went and enjoyed a lovely Italian dinner, where I enjoyed my favourite drink when in the USA an Appletini. Thanks for finding the time to meet with me and next time we will definitely do some sewing, or perhaps arrange for a USA TX meet!!!!!!

As you can imagine, we hardly stopped chatting all evening about sewing, past, present and future, including my plans for my wedding sewing - (I only have 11 weeks to make everything (no panic)).

While in Houston I took great advantage of Hancock's sale on patterns, and despite recently promising that I wouldn't buy any more patterns, I managed to squeeze around 30 patterns in my bag.

Well I am still a little jet lagged, and am now babysitting Alana to give mum and dad a much needed break.

I hope you are all sewing up a storm, and there will definitely be more later.......................

Sunday, 10 February 2013

Thank you for all your comments on my top yesterday, and the many get well wishes.

As mentioned yesterday one of the first jobs of the day was to shorten my Vogue 8854 top. I took about 4" off the back and around 2" off the front, which as you can see from the before and after pictures has made quite a difference. Do I like it more??? Not sure, I think this may be an alternative to wearing a dressing gown over my PJ's rather than something I would wear out.

So not a complete wadder, but not as great as I would have liked.

I did complete another project today. I made my 3rd pair of Jalie Jeans, but I knew I needed to take them in because I have lost weight since making the muslin, so had to make adjustments to the pattern and was keeping my fingers crossed that I wasn't taking them in too much (or perhaps not enough).

They turned out fine, except for the waistband which is too large in the back. I think I may need to consider a curved waistband. But, me being me, I was up against the clock determined to make these before we headed up to London tonight. I did finish them, however I know that I will need to make an adjustment to the waistband at some time in the future.

I am heading off to Houston on Friday, so I needed to pack my bag and bring it with me. I have probably forgotten something I usually do!!!!!!!! Hopefully my cold with clear up before I go, surely it cant hang around for longer than 2 weeks. It had started to snow again here tonight, so I suspect that the weather will be slightly warmer in Houston.

This was quite a easy pattern to make up, but I think it may be a tad too long for my 5' 4" frame, so might reduce the length in the morning by about 3" back and front to give me better proportions..

Unfortunately this was quite a fine knit and extremely see-through, so you can clearly see my tee underneath. I think once I have shortened it, I'll wear it with a polo-neck jumper which should look better. If the weather gets warmer, then I guess it would look ok with a camisole underneath too.

The only alteration I made to the pattern was to reduce the sleeve length by about 3", and they are still quite long (perhaps I have unusually short arms hmmmmm). I didn't use the poppers as directed by the pattern because I topstitched the placket along the bottom edge and half way up the front. This left more than enough room for me to pop my head through.

While I am demonstrating the hood up, I doubt that I'll ever wear it like this. It is a HUGE hood and really is best kept just as a decorative feature.

All seams were sewn on my serger and top-stitching on my Bernina sewing machine (because I couldn't be bothered to keep changing from serger to coverstich on my Babylock). Its times like this where I think I could do with a separate coverstich machine, but I really can't justify it at the moment.

I found a nice large button in my button box. It was probably one of my mother's old buttons which is a nice thought.

I am asking myself if I like this top or not. I think once I reduce the length, and wear it with a similar coloured poloneck top I'll like it better. If not, then its definitely a nice trendy tunic to wear lounging around with my PJ underneath. Perhaps I'll make some in a similar colour so they all blend in.

Thats my lot for the day. Need some R&R to get over this "bug" I have, but do want to run something up tomorrow, so lets hope I feel better in the morning.

Monday morning I woke up with a throat like razor blades and now that has morphed itself into a full blown cold which has resulted now in a loss of voice (Mike said Christmas has come early) and dare I say it, so much gunk on my chest I feel like I am suffocating.

I am so annoyed because my time at the weekends are precious and after Sunday I will not be sewing for a couple of weekends because I am off to Houston for a week.

I want to do some sewing, and now I have to adjust my plans to my ability to sit and concentrate for shorter periods of time, and I am still trying to decide what to make - oh and I did I mention we are babysitting too lol (I just hope I don't pass it on to her).

I have seen a few items in my Burda magazines that I rather fancy, so I might select some pieces that are not too challenging for a fuddled brain that is only running 50% and see how I get on.

Hope your plans for the weekend sewing are not getting scuppered like mine.

Catch you all later hopefully with the results of my sewing..................

Sunday, 3 February 2013

My D Mike's parents wanted to take us away for the weekend, and I hate going a whole week without doing any sewing, so in order to get my sewing-fix, I decided to run up my TNT Kwik Sew twinset pattern out of some lovely yellow cable-knit jersey I had in my stash. However this was achieved at the same time my son brought my DGD to visit, my DD visited and then my sister........ Thankfully I managed to persuade them to chat to me upstairs in my sewing room and Alana was very helpful passing me the pins that I needed to pin my hems.

This is such a quick pattern to make up, and if you have overlooked this pattern, you are missing out on a real gem. This twinset pattern is a great wardrobe staple that you can make lots of changes to. I rarely do the buttons up on cardigans so for this set I didn't bother with snaps or buttons making it even quicker to sew up. The entire twinset was made using my serger and cover-stitch machine.

There is a huge discrepancy between the photo of me wearing the twinset and the close-up of the fabric. I would say the true colour is between the close-up photo and the one photo of me modelling the outfit. The photograph was taken in the lobby of our room in the Swan Hotel in Southwold.

Southwold is a charming north Suffolk seaside town, with its own little pier, working lighthouse and beautiful beach huts (that cost a small fortune if you are even able to buy one) overlooking the north sea. The pier is home to a fabulous water powered chiming clock which entertains people who wait to see what happens on the hour.

We walked off our breakfast by first walking to the harbour and then back along the beach to the pier. It certainly blew the cobwebs out of our hair, it was very very windy but we had a lovely weekend thanks Mike's parents.

I hope you have all had a great weekend. Catch you later...............